Aldermen want guidelines for North York development

Elmhurst officials ask city for comprehensive plan to guide TIF district

November 15, 2012|By Graydon Megan, Special to the Tribune

Two Elmhurst aldermen are asking that the city put together a comprehensive plan to guide development in the city's new North York tax increment financing district.

The two aldermen, Dannee Polomsky and Norman Leader, sent a memo to City Manager James Grabowski and Mayor Peter DiCianni asking for the plan.

They listed 13 categories they believe should be addressed including the scale of buildings, architectural style, windows and doors, rear yards and facades, lighting and signage.

Polomsky said city officials had focused over the last year and a half on establishing the new district and setting boundaries and not on the details of development. The new special taxing district, approved in early September, stretches along the borders of York Street from downtown Elmhurst to all the way to Grand Avenue. It already has its first redevelopment project, a Mariano's Fresh Market set to open next spring or early summer.

"I thought it would make sense to submit this now," Polomsky said.

She said that the city has a Downtown Plan to guide development there and needs a similar blueprint for development in the North York area.

Unlike previous plans, she said the new plan should include opportunities for residents to provide input.

"The new part is having some sort of open house or workshop or forum to let citizens and residents share their thoughts," she said.

In their memo, Leader and Polomsky also asked that consideration be given to bike-friendly design and what they called bioretention to minimize flooding. Bioretention areas, like rain gardens, are natural areas shaped, planted and layered with sand, soil and organic materials to slow storm water runoff.

Leader and Polomsky will have a chance to work on the plan, since both are members of the Development, Planning and Zoning Committee, which is chaired by Alderman Steve Morley.

They may not get to it soon though, as their committee has just begun to tackle some other pressing items. Those include possible tweaking of the city's building code after a potential developer citing excessive building costs walked away from a plan to put an assisted-living facility on part of the former Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare hospital site east of the city's downtown.

Planning and Zoning Administrator Nathaniel "Than" Werner also recently noted that the committee is also still pecking away at the possibility of backyard chickens in town.